There’s a story that’s going to be told. And I would rather be the one telling it.
So states Jill Duggar in our first real look at Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets, the upcoming Amazon Prime Video documentary that aims to expose the dangerous environment in which Jill and her siblings were raised.
The cult, really.
In particular, this limited series will delve into Institute in the Basic Life Principles, a radical religious organization that is most responsible for the VERY conservative values Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar instilled upon their children over the years.
“World domination was the goal,” a man says in the trailer released this week by People Magazine.
Adds woman off camera: “The IBLP teachings aren’t Christianity. They’re something entirely different.”
The intriguing promo eventually teases Jill, Derick Dillard and Amy (Duggar) King’s involvement with the project… all of whom have been extremely critical of this organization over the past several months.
“We were part of IBLP as early as I can remember,” Jill says at one point.
Late last year, Jinger Duggar talked openly about a memoir she penned that also aimed to bring attention to the effed up lessons she was taught as a kid.
In Becoming Free Indeed, according to the book’s publishing company, “Jinger recounts how she began to question the harmful ideology of her youth and learned to embrace true freedom in Christ.”
From what we can tell, though, Jinger isn’t interviewed by Amazon for this program.
Others hurl plenty of accusations in the trailer, however, as one man alleges that IBLP founder Bill Gothard “turned every father into a cult leader and every home into an island.”
Another woman alleges that “the institute raises little predators.”
Following this scary statement, a news announcer speaks about the Duggars’s “dark family secret” involving Jill’s brother, Josh Duggar.
The father of seven was found guilty in December 2021 of knowingly receiving and possessing child pornography.
Prior to that truly heinous scandal, Josh admitted in a police report that he molested four young girls when he was between the ages of 12 and 15. Two of the victims that came forward were his sisters Jill and Jessa.
“It’s like the epitome of evil,” a woman says. “It breaks my heart to think about the girls.”
In general, this documentary focuses on Basic Life Principles more than just the Duggars, as one individual woman alleges that IBLP is “playing the long game” in hopes of getting kids within the devoted base “training in political engagement” to get them prominent roles in office.
“The shiny, happy images is the sugar, and we’re all high on it,” a different woman says.
“They were just deceiving us all.”
According to the description of the trailer shared on YouTube:
“Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets is a limited docuseries exposing the truth beneath the wholesome Americana surface of reality tv’s favorite mega-family, The Duggars, and the radical organization behind them: The Institute in Basic Life Principles.
“As details of the family and their scandals unfold, we realize they’re part of an insidious, much-larger threat already in motion, with democracy itself in peril.”
